The Not-So-Grand Experiment
Public access television has always been frowned upon by boob-tube elitists. It’s cheap, shoddy, crude and amateurish, they say. But what they forget, or ignore, is the fact that public access is a forum for experimentation — and not just in the Spice Channel sort of way. Fort Worth-born civil…
News of the Weird
Lead StoriesBritish TV program guide: The BBC gave one more try in December to save the 1980s hit program One Man and His Dog, whose viewership has fallen off; the program consists entirely of shepherds (each with his dog) competing to efficiently herd sheep into pens (although producers jazzed it…
Boogie Nights
Once upon a time, jazz was considered dance music. Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman and the rest played their music in nightclubs, and people moved to the beat. But after the bebop revolution, jazz became so complex no one could shake a tail feather to it. (Has John Coltrane…
Letters
Breathless in HoustonI just finished reading your article “Drowning on Dry Land” [by Wendy Grossman, February 3]. I found it interesting, and it backs up a couple of theories I had about asthma. I have had asthma since I was a baby. My mother could probably give you more details,…
Deliverance
To Yankees and other newcomers, sure, its very name is politically incorrect: The Confederate House, good Lord. It smacks of the embattled Stars and Bars, of rebel yells and Klan hoods and benighted backwoods folk who’ve not heard the War was lost; everything ugly and frightening, in other words, about…
The Pan-Cultural Film Festival Schedule
The Lineup: Thursday, February 10 Angelika Film Center 5 p.m.: The Opium War (China/UK) Friday, February 11 Museum of Fine Arts noon: Chimera House (U.S.) 2 p.m.: Nu-Shu – A Hidden Language of Women in China (U.S./China) 3:30 p.m.: Why Did They Kill Their Neighbors? (Rwanda/Japan) 5 p.m.: The Cowboy…
Glamour of Glaw
Over the phone Michelle Glaw sings, in a gloomy minor key, the first verse of her band’s newly penned theme song: “I’m a Vulga, you’re a Vulga, we’re the Vulgarians….And if you mess with one of us, we’ll mess you up and drink your pus.” She giggles then speaks. “Hopefully,”…
Crema de la Crema
When one thinks of south-of-the-border cuisine, one does not immediately think of El Salvador, a country more known for surviving a vicious civil war and a hellacious home-leveling hurricane. Why, if you went on a hunt for Salvadoran food in Houston, you’d come up with a regrettably short list, perhaps…
Blues Brothers
There are only two guys in 20 Miles, but they always manage to create a mini-ruckus. Brothers Donovan and Judah Bauer (the latter of the incomparable Jon Spencer Blues Explosion) dole out simple skronk that, while loud, is also tuneful. Even though the pair’s second album, I’m a Lucky Guy,…
Dish
Skeptics scoffed last summer when Mickey Kapoor, owner of the Khyber North Indian Grill [2510 Richmond, (713)942-9424], joined forces with native New Orleanian Troy Roth to create The Gumbo Shop [2207 Richmond, (713)522-1311]. It sounded like an improbable notion, frankly, and featured what some thought an unlucky location: the site…
Old School
It’s not uncommon for musicians to find inspiration from a single artistic work: The Rolling Stones chose their name from a Muddy Waters tune. Jim Morrison called his band the Doors after Aldous Huxley’s The Doors of Perception, and Dan Potthast, singer/guitarist for ska-rockers MU330, claims to have found his…
Hot Plate
Righteous Ribs: Let us count the ways we’ve fallen in love with the rib plate ($7.95) at Baker’s Ribs [2223 South Voss, (713)977-8725]. Start with all five of the thick, rosy-pink smoked pork ribs, the tender meat slipping so gently from the bones. Then there’s that frisky barbecue sauce, deep…
Rotation
Mudhoney March to Fuzz Sub Pop “Grandpa, do you remember Lollapalooza?” “Lollapa — … That’s a name I haven’t heard in years. Let’s see, you probably know that your grandmother and I met at Lollapalooza 7 at the piercing booth, right?” “Ummm.” “Anyway, that Perry Farrell! What a character! Trying…
Local Rotation
“Mean” Gene Kelton Most Requested Avatar Records You’ve heard of shock rock, shock art and shock radio, right? But shock blues? Try to imagine a Southern Howard Stern, wringing solos from a Telecaster over a deep groove, growling, “My baby don’t wear no panties / Ask me how I know,”…
Amplified
All’s fair in radio and rap. Another national hit by a local rapper is on its way at The Box. “Down South,” by Mista Madd, is the song. Featuring Mista Madd, Yungstar and Slim Thug from Swishahouse, the tune has a hook big enough to reel in a great white…
Turn On Your Heartlight
The odd title of Richard Laub’s The Seat Between, premiering at The Little Room Downstairs Theater, comes from a story Laub tells far into the second act: He’s sitting in a movie house, settling in just before the previews start, when in walk two men. They are strangers to him,…
Playbill
On name alone, it would be easy for a connoisseur to dislike Terri Hendrix. The bombastic moniker sounds a little plagiaristic, a little bit too much like Jimi You-know-who. But fact is, this female Hendrix is an ordinary San Antonio native with a guitar, simple melodies and lyrics on love,…
Storming The Beach
Ewan McGregor. You can’t toss a caber in Scotland these days without toppling a gaggle of blokes who closely resemble him. Yet some magical combination of talent, charm and shrewd management has thrown wide the gates of choice projects for the young superstar, whose résumé already glows like a career…
Mousse Crossing
La crème de la coiffure! A mock documentary about, of all things, a Scottish hairdresser who travels to America to compete in an international hairstyling tournament, The Big Tease is a mildly amusing romp that benefits enormously from an ingratiating performance by Scottish actor Craig Ferguson, who also co-wrote the…
Reel Worlds
Mohammed Kamara believes that film is the true universal language. It certainly has been for him. As a boy in Guinea, West Africa, he was exposed to cinema through the World Health Organization and the American Red Cross. “They used to bring 16-millimeter projectors in the back of a Land…
Billie Bob’s (Mis) Fortune
Many have the same dream: finding the six magical numbers that unlock the treasure known as the Texas Lottery. Then life would be good. Problems would vanish. There are even the collective fantasies of what to buy and with whom to share this new, instant wealth. Billie Bob Harrell Jr…
Smoke Screen
Jane Campion’s 1992 film, The Piano, was an intoxicating work of art, a film of such beauty and power that it literally took my breath away. Nothing the New Zealand-born writer-director has done before or since even comes close to matching it in form, content or sensibility. Her latest film,…
Gospel According to Matthew
On the surface, “Forever Will Stand,” penned by local songwriter Matthew Levine, sounds like traditional gospel. Over a swaying rhythm, complemented by soft piano lines and the collective harmony of a choir, a woman sings: “O sisters and brothers, the hour is at hand / Our very foundation is turning…
Pulling the Strings
Joe Orduna was doing his job as an investigator with the Texas Commission on Alcohol and Drug Abuse late last year. He gave a negative licensing evaluation to Richard Johnson’s controversial antidrug program, the Golden Eagle Training Academy. In late January Orduna had to call Houston police: Johnson, the six…
The Judge Who Can’t Talk Straight
Last year the Houston Press revealed that Judge Jim Wallace thought he had found a dandy way to improve his dismal standings in the local Houston Bar poll [“Getting Out the Vote,” by George Flynn, October 13, 1999]. He notified all attorneys seeking appointments in his court to join the…
Stadia Watch
If we believe the local sports media, it’s only a matter of time before we’ll have to face the prospect of watching Steve Francis and Cuttino Mobley light it up for the Baltimore Blackmailers, or Vegas Vegetarians, or whatever the Rockets will be called after Les Alexander takes an offer…
Out in the Street
Promoters and community activists are locked in a high-visibility battle over a city permit for the next Westheimer Street Festival, but the event is also being examined in an important but more obscure venue: the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission. TABC officers are reviewing the questionable arrangement between the Westheimer Street…
The Insider
The day before his 70th birthday last March, Eugene Ross took his customary walk to a small neighborhood park several blocks from his home in northwest Houston. The mildly retarded man has lived his entire life under the care of relatives in the Heights area. He collected trash and did…
News Hostage
For a long, long time, Jeff Millar has personified the Houston Chronicle’s features section. His entertainment reviews go back to the Beatlemania days. He has long been the lead film critic. He writes a twice-weekly column. He’s the co-creator of the comic strips Tank McNamara and Second Chances. And soon,…